The 30 Best Willy Wonka Quotes Ever

Summary

• Willy Wonka quotes originated in Roald Dahl’s novel and are iconic, entertaining, and eccentric expressions of his character.
• Gene Wilder’s portrayal in the 1971 film set the stage for Johnny Depp and Timothée Chalamet to later play the role in remakes and prequels.
• Wonka’s whimsical and magical personality is a mix of eccentricity, humor, and wisdom, making for memorable and quotable moments in the films.

Willy Wonka is one of the most iconic film characters of all time, and many of the more memorable Willy Wonka quotes actually originate in Roald Dahl’s original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory novel. First and most memorably seen on screen in the classic 1971 family film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the unique and entertaining character was brought to life thanks to Gene Wilder’s unforgettable performance. The film follows a group of children who are granted access to access a wondrous candy factory by the eccentric Wonka thanks to golden tickets hidden in candy.

Since then, Johnny Depp played the character in a 2005 remake, and Timothée Chalamet in a 2023 prequel. When it comes to Roald Dahl’s huge library of characters, Willy Wonka stands out as the strongest and most memorable of the bunch. He’s eccentric and over-the-top, but underneath it all, he shows a level of heart, kindness, and whimsical magic that makes him so much fun to watch. Wonka is unnerving, hilarious, and incomprehensible all at once. His other-worldly behavior makes for some great one-liners and endlessly quotable moments from the films.

30 “I’m Sorry, But All Questions Must Be Submitted In Writing.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

One of the funniest aspects of Willy Wonka in both the books and the movies is that he tends to brush off everyone’s questions or concerns to continue sharing his vision of a candy factory. He doesn’t want to ruin the presentation by answering questions about how things work or where they come from. He also has his plans down pat and wants nothing to distract from them, especially questions that could put a hold on how he wants his special event to play out.

That’s why, any time one of the group asks a question he doesn’t want to answer, he comes up with a new way to ignore the question. In this case, he flippantly comments it needs to be in writing, knowing that they don’t have time to do that. For him, this passes as corporate business-speak.

29 “May I Present, Willy Wonka’s Wild And Wonderful Wishy-Washy Wonka Walker!”

Wonka (2023)

“Please, don’t make me say that again.”

It is no secret after watching the original movies that Willy Wonka often gets so excited that he can’t say things right all the time because he just wants to get his ideas out into the world. Even a young Wonka does this, but at that time, he is not quite as self-aware. In Wonka, he introduces the people in the house he lives in to his newest contraption. This is called the “Wild and Wonderful Wishy-Washy Wonka Walker.”

Willy Wonka has a job a physically taxing job and a laundry, so he makes this contraption to clean for him using a dog running in place and many moveable gears and pulleys. It is quite an impressive feat, and something fans of Wallace and Gromit would appreciate. He does it to ensure he has time to do what he wants to do, make chocolate. However, after delivering his hilarious name for the device, he realizes it is so difficult that he doesn’t want to say it again.

28 “Oh, You Have Questions? Let Me Drop Everything.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Like the Willy Wonka quote about people putting all questions in writing, this line is also meant as a way to actually deter questions being asked of him. Instead of finding a roundabout way to put off the questions, Wonka gets highly sarcastic and extremely rude about it instead. At this point in the story of Charlie’s visit to the chocolate factory, Mr. Wonka has already made his stance on questions clear, so he’s no longer even pretending that he’s going to offer up explanations.

It’s one of the ways Dahl’s story is able to keep an air of mystery around the chocolate maker, while also showing that he won’t let anyone deter him from his ultimate mission. While it might make Wonka seem rude, it is also a way to show how turned off he is by all these questions, that are distracting from the journey he arranged for the kids.

27 “Oh, You Should Never, Never, Doubt What Nobody Is Sure About.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

At first, this particular quote from Willy Wonka appears to be completely nonsensical. That’s not the case, though. This is one of the times when word choice is used to make the character sound slightly off, but Wonka makes a good point. He suggests that if no one is sure about something, and if no one knows the answer to something, there’s probably a reason for that.

Of course, he says it flippantly and moves along, so no one really has time to process what he’s saying. In the end, this is a Willy Wonka quote that shows how he has always lived his life. He never takes anything for granted and believes that he can do and achieve anything. Even if people say it isn’t possible, he will take the chance and will often prove everyone wrong.

26 “A Whangdoodle Would Eat Ten Oompa-Loompas For Breakfast And Think Nothing Of It.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Just where the Oompa-Loompas are from and how they end up working with Willy Wonka is one of the mysteries of his story. The movies only reveal parts of their history, and each of the three tells very different tales. The novels claim they are from Africa and the earlier movies claim South America or the Amazon. Some theories claim they are aliens from another planet. Much of the lore doesn’t necessarily make sense.

That’s because other things, like a “whangdoodle” are introduced to their story. Like Oompa-Loompas, whangdoodles are fictional, so all that’s really known about them is that they are large enough to eat 10 Oompa-Loompas and come back for more. This is why Willy Wonka claims he needed to help save them from the dangers of their home, wherever that home may be.

25 “Don’t Forget What Happened To The Man Who Suddenly Got Everything He Wanted… He Lived Happily Ever After.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Despite the many creepy moments in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie (and Dahl’s novel), the truth is that the story of Willy Wonka finding someone to take over his business has a happy ending. Charlie and his family finally have financial stability thanks to Wonka’s successful line of products while Wonka has someone he can trust to take over.

The entire movie saw Willy Wonka letting each child and parent, one by one, do something selfish, greedy, or wrong. It seemed like he would never find his successor. However, that moment happened when Charlie did the one thing that proved he was good at heart. The scene in the glass elevator in which Willy Wonka and Charlie Bucket discuss the prize makes the movie a happy one, both for Charlie and the audience in general.

24 “I’m Making Chocolate, Of Course. How Do You Like It? Dark? White? Nutty? Absolutely Insane?”

Wonka (2023)

In Wonka, fans finally see how Willy Wonka came to become the great chocolate maker by finding the best ways to make delicious and ridiculous chocolates. He also has an excited energy about him that makes his chocolate-making so fun, as well as so addictive for him. When the orphan Noodle walks in and sees him sitting with a science set, working hard on something, she asks what he is doing.

Of course, Wonka can’t just give her the answer in a normal way. Instead, he offers up his passion in an over-the-top manner that says everything anyone needs to know about the character. He wants to offer the young girl a chocolate, no matter what kind she likes, from dark and white to those with nuts, to those that are “absolutely insane.” When looking at his various chocolates from this movie as well as the originals, this describes what he does best in his factory.

23 “The Best Kind Of Prize Is A SUR-prise!”

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005)

Though many of Willy Wonka’s best quotes are meant to unnerve the visitors to the chocolate factory or be just unsettling enough to make them wonder about the character, some of his quotes also demonstrate how great he is at wordplay. This particular pun highlights that. Sometimes, Wonka makes creepy jokes, but other times, he makes dad jokes, keeping the audience slightly off balance, but always entertained.

In this instance, it comes from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after Violet turns into a blueberry and has to leave. Wonka is almost taunting the kids at this point, and his line about the “surprise” is in response to Violet’s terrible surprise, which makes Willy deliver the creepy laugh he has throughout the movie. He also makes sure that Veruca and Mike know they are annoying him, which will lead to their own surprises later in the movie.

22 “No, No, Don’t Speak. For Some Moments In Life, There Are No Words. Run Along Now.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

“Adieu adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Just as Willy Wonka likes to do his best to ignore questions, he also does his best to ignore protests, concerns, and any other comments that aren’t praising his work. That’s especially true when each of the children on the tour of his chocolate factory finds themselves having an accident due to their own selfish disregard for his warnings. His lack of concern for them is reflected in this particular line when he dismisses one of them and continues on with the next part of the tour.

This moment is actually even more disturbing. After Mike is shrunk down and is small enough to fit into his mother’s purse, she begins to swoon and falls, only for the Oompa-Loompas to catch her. As she is clearly out of it after seeing what happened to her son, Wonka buds her “adieu” as the Oompa-Loompas carry her out of the room and out of the story.

21 “Invention Is 93% Perspiration, 6% Electricity, 4% Evaporation, And 2% Butter Scotch Ripple.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

One of the often-remembered Willy Wonka quotes is this one about what goes into Willy Wonka’s work. Though the line is certainly meme-able, what’s usually remembered about this is that Wonka’s percentages exceed 100. Even one of the parents points out that it equals 105%, to which Wonka just responds by saying, “Yes” before moving on. He’s a candyman, not a mathematician, and just as he rankles at questions, Wonka has no time for his guests’ arguments or contradictions.

Furthermore, it’s an impossible combination just like so many of Wonka’s other impossible concoctions — and yet they always seem to come out perfect. The bad math and wacky inventions perfectly fit with his personality, even if not every person who watches him is going to remember the exact numbers or combination of traits that Wonka uses, which is probably his point.

20 “I’ve Got Twelve Silver Sovereigns In My Pocket. And A Hatful Of Dreams”

Wonka (2023)

This Willy Wonka quote is part of the first song, “A Hatful of Dreams”, from Wonka in 2023. The song starts with Wonka on a ship heading into town for the first time. He mentions how he has no money, with old clothes and broken-down shoes. He sings that he put all his money into his chocolate inventions. He then delivers this line as the prelude to the next verses. However, there is also another part to this specific quote that shows what kind of person Wonka really is as the song wears on.

He gives money to a man selling a map and then another to a child who cleans his shoes. He has to spend even more when he accidentally drops a pumpkin and smashes it at a cart, and then the same shoe-cleaning child. By the time the song ends, he has given away all 12 of his silver sovereigns. He then learns there is a penalty for daydreaming, and ends up with almost nothing left at the end of his song other than his dreams.

19 “Strike That. Reverse It.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Wonka is such a compelling and entertaining character because he really doesn’t seem to operate in this world. He is constantly preoccupied with a dozen different thoughts and rushes his guests from one place to the other like a madman. With his hectic demeanor, he seems to confuse himself at times. He declares as the tour is about to get underway that they have “so much time and so little to see” before catching his mistake.

He repeats this mistake throughout the film, and it’s a wonderif he’s really this confused or if he’s messing with the guests. This is such a great line that 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory repeats it as does the origin story Wonka. It is just an example of how Wonka has so many things on his mind that it runs faster than his mouth on too many occasions.

18 “There’s No Earthly Way Of Knowing… Which Direction They Are Going.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

One of Willy Wonka’s creepier moments is during the boat scene, which takes the group down the Chocolate River. What starts as a nice, happy journey quickly turns into one of the eeriest moments in the movie, which freaks out even the sternest of the parents. Wonka bursts out in song, but not in a happy, joyful manner. Instead, it is all done with a very strange tone.

He clearly sings about how the boat journey is descending into madness, which only serves to make it weirder, giving the full range to his character and all the images that accompany Wonka’s words in the scene. This scene makes it almost look like Willy Wonka is an evil and dangerous character. However, the entire purpose of the boat trip plays out later in the movie when several of the kids terribly fail their individual tests.

17 “So Shines A Good Deed In A Weary World.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

This line is actually a reworked version of a Shakespeare line in The Merchant of Venice, but coming from Wonka’s mouth, it manages to say a lot about his character. The quote means that even if the world around him doesn’t always seem like a particularly good place when one person can achieve something good, it can stand out above the bad. Wonka has worked his whole life to bring some good into the world.

When it comes to moving on, he is dismayed to find that there doesn’t seem to be anyone worthy of his place. Then he meets Charlie and his spirit is restored. This quote was right after Wonka said Charlie lost because he cheated. When Grandpa Joe said he would give the Everlasting Gobstopper to Slugworth, Charlie declined and gave it back to Wonka. Willy then muttered this quote under his breath before declaring Charlie the winner.

16 “Everything In This Room Is Eatable, Even *I’m* Eatable! But That Is Called ‘Cannibalism,’ My Dear Children, And Is In Fact Frowned Upon In Most Societies.”

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005)

This particular line was used in promotional videos and trailers for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when Johnny Depp played Willy Wonka in 2005, and many thought it was a sign of a darker movie to come. In reality, the line appears in the original novel. In fact, many of Willy Wonka’s more sensational quotes are pulled straight from Dahl’s book.

This is one line that demonstrates Wonka’s unique sense of humor and his honesty when talking to those being given a tour of his chocolate factory. Willy Wonka wants everyone to know that he created this factory with everything being edible. He then realizes that there are also people in the factory, which means that they must be edible as well. The fact he mentions it, with his simple lesson to the kids, shows the movie wasn’t darker, but just as absurd as the original film.

15 “Greed Always Overcomes Need.”

Wonka (2023)

Willy Wonka was an eternal optimist, and he believed that he could bring chocolate to a world that wasn’t happy and needed something better. While the other chocolate overlords demanded chocolate that was simple, Wonka wanted something that brought back childhood memories, made people happy, and were literal objects of magical energy. However, Noodle then said that the “greedy beat the needy.” This made Wonka decide to “Change the world.”

However, he soon found things hard as he set out to do so. The chocolate overlords and the local police were there to stop him every time he brought joy to the people. It almost seemed like it was time to quit, and he delivered this sad line. It was the exact theme of the movie as well, with the greed of the few holding down everyone else. It also shows why Willy Wonka has such a high level of disgust for people he meets later in life who are mostly selfish and cruel.

14 “If You Want To View Paradise, Simply Look Around And View It.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

One of the more charming elements of this Roald Dahl tale is the music. The songs in the original 1971 movie really are enjoyable, and one of the best is “Pure Imagination”, the number that Willy Wonka himself sings as they first enter the factory. Everything about the scene is of unadulterated amazement, and Wonka’s words reflect that perfectly.

He comes across as kind and fun and is everything the characters initially expect from someone in his position. This line in the song is particularly powerful though, as it showcases that there is a true beauty in everything, with paradise being found anywhere if you look for it. While most of the people in the town have no money and live in poverty, Wonka believes that people can make beauty out of any situation with the right attitude.

13 “Gives It A Little Kick.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

It can be hard to tell when Wonka is being sincere with the ridiculous things he says and when he’s in on the joke. He partly seems to enjoy the idea that everyone around him thinks he’s a little strange and tells these jokes only for himself. When showing the tour guests the bizarre process of making his candy, Wonka begins adding random objects into the mix.

Most memorable of all is his addition of an old shoe and his fantastic explanation. It is a silly pun, but it really does amuse the candyman, even if it does get some eye rolls from the people around him. It isn’t his only pun as he also mentions that “time is a terrible thing to kill” before throwing a clock into the mix. It just seems that Wonka loves these little clever wordplay one-liners.

12 “I Think That Furnace Is Only Lit Every Other Day, So They Have A Good Sporting Chance, Haven’t They?”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Willy Wonka really does come out with some incredible quotes during the movie, and one of the best is when he reassures a concerned Charlie Bucket that Veruca and her father won’t actually be burnt in the furnace as he first suggests. This line comes after Veruca sings a song about wanting everything and starts destroying everything she can get her hands on beforethrowing a fit and falling into the furnace. Her father goes in after her to save her, and everyone looks on in horror.

It’s a great line because, first, he has no clue whether the Salts will or won’t die, and second, because it’s so quick-witted at the end as he casually brushes off the situation and the fact that they could be burned. It’s the type of character that he is, often switching personalities, and that’s what makes him so hard to predict.

11 “If The Good Lord Had Intended Us To Walk, He Wouldn’t Have Invented Roller Skates.”

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

The wise philosopher persona of Wonka seems to be in direct contrast to his rather childlike rationale of the world. When Mike asks why the tour doesn’t just continue on foot, Wonka gives this response. It almost sounds right until the realization comes that it’s nonsense. Again, it’s hard to say if this is just another way of messing with the kids and displaying his eccentricities or if he really does believe roller skates were invented by a higher power.

Either way, these strange sayings somehow make him seem like the smartest person in the room. What makes it work so well is that everyone there is confused about the entire situation, and even the adults in the room have no idea how to respond and just go along with all the bizarre things that Willy Wonka says throughout the movie.